Canada is preparing to overhaul its approach to financial crime. Budget 2025 unveils the country’s first-ever National Anti-Fraud Strategy: a whole-of-government initiative aimed at curbing the surge in scams, money laundering and consumer-targeted fraud that has plagued the country in recent years.
The scale of the problem is alarming. In 2024 alone, Canadians lost CAD $643 million to fraud, an increase of almost 300 per cent since 2020. Yet the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre believes this represents only a fraction of the real damage, as the majority of cases go unreported. The government’s message is clear: this is no longer just a consumer-protection issue, but a systemic financial-crime threat.
The birth of the Financial Crimes Agency
At the heart of Canada’s anti-fraud drive is the planned Financial Crimes Agency, to be legislated by spring 2026. This new federal body will consolidate law-enforcement expertise to investigate and recover proceeds from complex financial crimes, including online fraud, money laundering and organised criminal activity.
By uniting enforcement capacity across finance, justice and public-safety portfolios, Canada is signalling a more coordinated model similar to the UK’s National Crime Agency or Australia’s AUSTRAC. For compliance professionals, it represents a shift toward integrated supervision and stronger expectations for fraud-risk management.
Strengthening consumer protection through law
The first legislative step will amend the Bank Act to hard-wire fraud-prevention obligations into banking compliance frameworks. Financial institutions will be required to implement robust fraud-detection procedures, secure explicit customer consent before activating high-risk account features, and provide customers with greater control over transaction limits.
Banks will also have to collect and report fraud-related data to the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC), moving Canada closer to a model of regulatory transparency seen in other advanced markets. For compliance teams, these requirements demand enhanced data-governance systems, consent-management processes and cross-functional coordination between fraud, AML and cybersecurity units.
Economic abuse: expanding the definition of financial harm
The Budget 2025 also introduces a voluntary code of conduct for the prevention of economic abuse, to be developed jointly with the banking sector and overseen by the FCAC. Economic abuse occurs when one individual controls another’s access to money, credit or assets, a form of coercion that disproportionately affects seniors, newcomers and victims of domestic violence.
Banks are seen as a critical line of defence. With appropriate training and detection protocols, they can identify signs of coercion and intervene early. For compliance officers, the challenge will be to integrate these social-risk indicators into KYC and customer-interaction frameworks without compromising privacy or autonomy.
Implications for compliance professionals
The National Anti-Fraud Strategy redefines the boundaries of compliance in Canada. Fraud prevention is no longer a back-office function but a regulatory expectation woven into governance, data reporting and consumer protection. Institutions must now assess how consent, account controls and fraud analytics fit within their broader AML and financial-crime risk frameworks.
Internationally active firms should also prepare for the Financial Crimes Agency’s cross-border reach, particularly in cases involving money-laundering or cyber-enabled fraud. Data-sharing and cooperation obligations are expected to expand in parallel with this new enforcement body.